Ronak Bhalotia
Bois Locker Room” or “sadistic masculinity” or a “subtle way of advertising rape culture”? We can connote infinite labels to such criminal act of unsavoury objectification of women and teenagers girls in an enclosed chat room which is otherwise not in the public domain but also on social media involving almost hundred under-aged boys who can also be termed as “juveniles” or just turned adults. This particular information has been ridiculed and has gained mass media attention from all over the world. Throwing some clarity on this, casual sexism, pornography, swapping of nudes without a consensus, sexual remarks, rape fancies, sexual harassment, slut-shaming, and morphing images were some of the illegal doings that were carried out in this so-called “small” chat room. This diabolical incident went viral after a south Delhi girl busted the Bois Locker Room by sharing the screenshots of the group chat on Instagram and Twitter. After investigation, the admin of the group, a boy of 18 years old, was arrested by the cyber cell of the Delhi Police.
Even after the #MeToo movement why haven’t we progressed as a society? The reasons pertaining to the unchanging attitude and the prevalence of “gender vengeance” are due to lack of proper sex education in schools, everyday machismo, prejudiced notion, indulging oneself in what absolutism, oblivious parenting, etc. Citing more of such incidents which were widely ridiculed- in 2019 a Mumbai school suspended 8 boys who indulged themselves in slut-shaming and using abhor terms like rape and trash via WhatsApp for their female classmates. Another occurrence that occurred simultaneously with the “Bois Locker room” was the leaking of an apparent sexual assault conversation on Snapchat concerning the rape of a girl, wherein later it was revealed that a girl emulated herself as a boy and planned for her own rape. The netizens deceitfully clubbed these two incidents together and claimed: “Bois Locker Room” to be a bogus construct.
Police has registered the FIR( First Information Report) under the following sections:-
“Section 67, Section 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2008, Section 465, Section 469, Section 471, Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.”
On 04.05.2020, the Delhi Commission for Women took Suo moto cognizance and issued a notice to the social media platform Instagram and Delhi Cyber Police and mandated to provide specific details of the admin and other group members which include their name, handle name, Email-ID, IP address, location and any other necessary information. But unfortunately, restricted and partial information was tendered by Instagram to the police, which proved to be a major impediment to further continue the investigation. On 05.04.2020, three practising lawyers of Supreme Court wrote a detailed letter and requested the Supreme Court to intervene in pursuance of the timely investigation, inquiry and adjudication of this offence. On 06.04.2020, Advocates Neela Gokhale and Ilam Paridi made a representation of the Delhi High Court to take Suo moto cognizance and register an FIR against the perpetrators and also initiate an investigation on the same. Subsequently, a Petition was filed by Advocate-on-Record Omprakash Parihar and Dushyant Tiwari on behalf of Dev Ashish Dubey, wherein the petitioner prayed to get the Instagram group “Bois Locker Room” issue investigated through SIT or CBI, to arrest all the Instagram Group “Bios Locker Room” members immediately and to provide safety to the girls and women who have exposed this heinous crime of students so that they cannot be harmed by the members of “Bois Locker Room” group.
It is horrendous to witness the creation of “Bois Locker Room 2.0” right after the busting of the original group. Instead of being contrite and abysmal, the members of this room threatened girls and pronounced rape threats on them. This conduct of the perpetrator manifests that nothing has changed and nothing ever will. Women will always be a target of male abhorrence, collectively. Presently, it is required by our judiciary to take austere action and not only let alone ensure that justice has been done but to similarly ensure that it is also to be seen.
In my opinion police has forget to include “Section 67B, Section 67E of the Information Technology Act 2008, Section 292, Section 293, Section 354A of the Indian Penal Code 1860, Section 13, Section 15 of The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.”
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